The South appealed to the sword, and the decision was against her. She frankly and wisely accepted it. She acknowledged that the labouring-man was now finally proved to be no article of merchandise, but a free and responsible citizen. That acknowledgment closed the era of strife between North and South. There was no longer anything to strive about. There was no longer North or South, in the old hostile sense, but a united nation, with interests and sympathies rapidly becoming identical. It has been foretold that America will yet break up into several nations. What developments may await America in future ages we do not know. But we do know that the only circumstance which threatened disruption among the sisterhood of States has been removed, and that the national existence of America rests upon foundations at least as assured as those which support any nation in the world. The South had laid aside all thought of armed resistance, and in perfect good faith had acquiesced in the overthrow of slavery. Her leaders did not, however, consent readily to those guarantees of future tranquillity which the North demanded. At the close of the war eleven States were without legal State government; and the North would not permit the restoration of the forfeited privilege until those constitutional changes were accepted by which the political equality of the negro was secured. It had become an easy thing to consent that the negro should be free; it was very hard to consent that he should sit in the State Legislatures, and exercise an influential voice in framing laws for those who had lately owned him. Several States withheld their concurrence from arrangements which humiliated them so deeply, desperately choosing rather to deny themselves for the time the privilege of self-government and to live under a government in whose creation they had no part. Very grave evils resulted from their pertinacious adherence to this unwise choice. Their affairs were necessarily taken charge of by the Federal executive, and President Grant sent them rulers from Washington. Unworthy persons were able by dexterous intrigue to gain positions of control, and hastened southwards, with no purpose to heal the wounds of the war; intent merely to plunder for their own advantage the impoverished and suffering States. The finances of the South were in extreme disorder. Public debt had increased enormously during the war; but the North averted the difficulty which this increase might have caused by insisting that no debt incurred for the purposes of the rebellion should be recognized as a public obligation. The temporary rulers of the South gave prompt attention to the possibility of obtaining loans, ostensibly for the restoration of railroads and other necessary works. It was not yet realized how fatally wasted the South had been, and men hastily concluded that her advantages of soil and climate must secure for her a rapid financial recovery. Cherishing such expectations,